The growth in popularity of the Internet and other computer networks has fueled not only an increasing availability, but an increasing appetite among computer users for digital information. Users typically seek access to this information using an access device, such a computer, to communicate with an online information-retrieval system. The information-retrieval system typically includes a graphical user interface for entering and submitting requests for information, known as queries, to a remote search engine. The search engine identifies relevant information, typically in the form of documents, and returns a results list to the user's access device.
One problem that the present inventors recognized in conventional information-retrieval systems concerns users entering poorly defined queries and receiving search results that include hundreds or maybe even thousands of documents. Even though the documents are often ranked in terms of quantitative relevance to the query, the task of identifying the documents most pertinent to the user's objective is onerous and time consuming. Moreover, if the query is poorly defined, the ultimate ranking of results is unlikely to be useful.
Accordingly, the inventors have identified a need to further improve how information-retrieval systems process user queries.